The Nataraja Idol

This incident occurred sometime in mid 2005.

Manish, a close friend of mine received a call one day from an elderly couple requesting his help with regards to some strange happenings in their house. Manish who is an engineer by profession incidentally dabbles a bit in the field of occult, helping needy people with problems pertaining to the paranormal. Mind you, he doesn't charge a penny for services rendered to clients. He does it selflessly and believes that he has a gift from God which he feels should be shared selflessly with everyone. I have been with him a couple of times when he has gone to clients and am amazed with his proficiency and sincerity.

Coming back to my story, the callers were the Nair family who were experiencing strange things and genuinely felt that Manish could help out. Manish asked me to accompany him since I had expressed interest in actually seeing his approach in such cases. We reached Mr. Nair's house at around 12. 00 noon. Just as we were entered Mr. Nair's house I saw a strange look in Manish's eyes. It surely meant that there was something amiss in the house. We looked at each other and nevertheless carried on without any words being exchanged between us. Mr. Nair was a respectable person who had worked as a scientist with the Govt. Of India for close to 35 years. He had retired from service around 6 months back and had been given a warm farewell by his colleagues. All the incidents started happening after his retirement only. Post that he had led a fairly comfortable life with his wife and kids. Manish asked Mr. Nair to show him around. The house was aesthetically designed. Mr. Nair wholeheartedly gave the credit to his wife who was an interior designer. One thing which stood out among the rest was the prayer room which had a beautiful Nataraja Idol.

Nataraja incidentally is a depiction of the Hindu god Shiva as the cosmic dancer who performs his divine dance to destroy a weary universe and make preparations and to start the process of creation of the same afresh. The two most common forms of Shiva's dance are the Lasya (the gentle form of dance), associated with the creation of the world, and the Tandava (the violent and dangerous dance), and associated with the destruction of the world. In essence, the Lasya and the Tandava are two aspects of Shiva's nature, for he destroys in order to create, tearing down to build again.

Manish who was concentrating on every minute detail in the house suddenly stopped in his tracks and stood spellbound staring at the Nataraja idol in the prayer room. He quickly regained his composure and went around seeing the rest of the house. We came back to the living room and Mr. Nair told us about the strange things which had happened in the past couple of months. He seemed very depressed and told us that ever since he had retired nothing seemed to go right for the family. His mother who was hale and hearty suddenly died due to a freak accident caused by a fall in the bathroom. His father was found dead one night in his favorite reading chair. His eyes were wide open in fear as if he had seen something which immediately led to his death due to massive heart attack. Mr. Nair was about to go on with his woeful tale when Manish suddenly interrupted him and pointed to the ceiling fan in the living room. He looked visibly disturbed and asked Mr. Nair whether there was an incident which had any relation to the ceiling fan in the room. That is when Mr. Nair broke down and told us that this was the same fan where his son Kannan, a bright engineering graduate had committed suicide by hanging himself. There was no particular reason why a bright and cheerful person with things going his way, both professionally as well as in his personal life should take a drastic step.

His family, which until recently had 6 members was now reduced to only 3 members. Each victim dying suddenly and unexpectedly in the last 5 months. Mr. Nair who now lived with his wife and teenaged daughter Sudha felt deeply for their safety and had hence contacted Manish. Manish paused for a while and then spoke. The confidence with which he spoke gave the impression that he had understood the problem and would be able to resolve the same.

Manish's Explanation:

As soon as we had entered Mr. Nair's the house, Manish had suddenly got the feeling that he had entered a Hindu crematorium where corpses were burnt after the last rites were carried out. He had actually felt the acrid smell of burning bodies. This is what had made him uneasy in the first place.

While going around the house he constantly got the feeling that death was lurking somewhere nearby waiting for its moment to get its next victim. This was confirmed when he actually saw a shadow hanging from the ceiling fan in the dining room. The reasons for all these unfortunate happenings according to Manish were the presence of the Nataraja Idol in the prayer room. This was recently given to Mr. Nair by his office colleagues as a farwell gift on his last day in office. Mrs Nair immediately took a liking to the beautiful idol and placed it in the prayer room where the family regularly offered prayers. All this had happened around five months ago and triggered start of the ill fated deaths of three family members the same time span. Manish explained that the dance of death (Tandava) is synonymous with Nataraja who destroys first in order to recreate again. Once the idol was placed in the prayer room, the prayers offered by the family had invoked its powers and it set off doing what it did best i.e. Destroy. This was the cause of the untimely deaths which occurred in the family.

He advised Mr. Nair to immediately remove the idol from the prayer room and all would be well again. Manish also told him that the remaining three members of his family were very lucky to have narrowly escaped a similar fate as the earlier 3 victims. Mr. Nair was reluctant to believe Manish at first but somehow agreed to the same because he had no other choice. Manish himself helped Mr. Nair to have the idol moved out of the prayer room. He then told Mr. Nair that everything would now be alright and that he had nothing to fear.

Two months later we visited the Nair and found them visibly happy. Mr. Nair profusely thanked Manish for his help. The idol was taken and kept in the safe custody of their village priest who somehow understood their anxiety and empathized with them. We do not know what happened to the priest after that. Perhaps he knew of a better way to appease the God without incurring its wrath.

Things were back on track for the Nair's with no untoward incident being reported after that.

Thank heavens for that and I hope it stays the same.